ASHEVILLE, N.C. —  Ruby the Capitol Christmas tree from North Carolina, may have finished out the holiday season, but she is still making joyful music.

“Every piece of wood that I turn into a guitar, I tap on it and listen to and Ruby is very musical,” Ken Jones said.

What You Need To Know

  • The 2022 Capitol Christmas tree came from North Carolina

  • A guitar luthier in Candler, N.C., has started the process of turning that wood into a guitar

  • The guitar will take around 200 hours to make

Ruby is the name of the 2022 U.S. Capitol Christmas tree that this wood came from.

“[An] interesting characteristic about Ruby is that the grain is very wide,” Jones said.

Ken Jones of Mountain Song Guitars in Candler, N.C., was recently asked to turn wood from Ruby into a guitar, but his journey with guitar-making started 17 years ago.

“I’m also a musician, and I got to a point where I wanted a really nice acoustic guitar, can’t afford to buy one, so I’ll just build one,” Jones said.

He says there are 100 steps to making a guitar.

“These are the bars that used to hold the braces down, while they’re being glued,” Jones said.

The piece he’s working on right now by shaving down the wood will eventually make up the front of the guitar.

“[I’m] refining the bracing, maintaining as much strength, while reducing weight as much as possible,” Jones said.

 

Ruby the Christmas tree is a spruce.

“These are the sides for Ruby, the guitar. I wanted to use all regionally sourced materials,” Jones said. “I use either maple or black walnut for the neck and Ruby for the top and the bracing and then persimmon for the bridge.”

Jones is just at the beginning of the process because it takes around 200 hours to make a guitar.

“Now, I can’t stop!” Jones said as worked on the braces, one of his favorite parts of the process. Jones says he also loves working on the neck of the guitar, the part you hold onto while playing the instrument.

“I think it’s really crucial that any luthier also be a musician, be a player. I don’t know how you could do this otherwise because it’s very important to know what you’re looking for in terms of the feel of the guitar,” Jones said.

Making this guitar is extra special for Jones because of the journey the wood has taken.

“There’s been so much tension, you know, tension and division in the country around the U.S. Capitol, if there’s some small way that I could be a part of sort of bringing communities back together, it was absolutely an honor to be asked to be a part of it,” Jones said.

He plans to complete the guitar by the end of the year. 

Related Stories